Yesterday, the The Ontario Nonprofit Network (ONN), an incubated project at the Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) and the Social Venture Exchange (SVX), an initiative of Social Innovation Generation (SiG) at MaRS, jointly released the first ever Social Finance Census 2010 which dug into the social finance needs and readiness of nonprofits, social enterprises and business to undertake social ventures. Executive Report More Social Finance Census 2010→

On Oct. 19, the Ontario government passed Bill 65. In this bill, they have done something absolutely tremendous. They have recognized “commercial activities” and opened the door for social enterprise to thrive in Ontario. More Ontario opens the door for social enterprise to thrive — time to celebrate!→

Working in partnership with members of the Ontario Social Economy Roundtable and the Ontario Nonprofit Network, Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) is pleased to present our briefing to the Provincial Partnership Project. In this paper, we are inviting the province to clarify and assist in scaling up Community Bonds. More Community bonds: A social finance innovation→

Can’t help but call out the excellent summary of the constellation governance model that Ben Zeigler has written. More Explanation of the Constellation Governance Model by Ben Zeigler→

Clayton Christensen of the Harvard Business School, writes a fascinating article in the Huffington Post: The White House Office on Social Innovation: A New Paradigm for Solving Social Problems. In the article he argues that the key to supporting social innovation is with a keen focus on metrics. He argues that we need to be ‘bottom-up’ and focus on ‘disruptive innovations.’ He questions governments role in supporting social innovation and questions why social innovation should be the domain of the nonprofit sector. More Applying Metrics to Social Innovation: Clayton Christensen’s commentary on the Obama’s Office of Social Innovation→

Today I learned that Wikimedia has been denied charitable status in the UK. Andrew Turvey explains here. I have also recently learned that the CRA Charities Dept has annulled the charitable status of Phoenix Community Foundation. They ‘annulled’ it claiming that the objects granted to Phoenix should never have been granted after being in operation for 30 years. I have also learned that several charities that are undertaking more entrepreneurial ventures have had their charitable status ‘under review’ here in Canada More What is a social mission and who gets to decide?→

The following is a response / commentary to Corvin Russel’s post on Judy Rebicks new blog Transforming Power. More So much for the new era of social economy and social entrepreneurship→

Creativity, Social Benefit and Job Creation: The Potential for Social Entrepreneurship in Ontario, by Andrea Baldwin, is the latest paper in theOntario in the Creative Working Paper Series:  It is good! and it is about time! More Creativity, Social Benefit and Job Creation in Ontario: A Report→

Today, I was delighted to learn that the constellation model is being applied to the work of the Ontario Literacy Coalition. My friend and colleague Melanie Redman, has been key to supporting the coalition to both understand and see the potential for this new way of organizing. More The Constellation Model applied to Ontario Literacy Coalition→

Wanda Jamieson has written a great piece for the Public Health Agency of Canada comparing various network models applied to the social determinants of health. The report is attached. More Comparing the Constellation Model with other network models→